Sunday, March 26, 2017

Nonie Darwish : What About the Cultural Imbalance? ISLAM/WEST

What About the Cultural Imbalance?

If we do not demand equal
cultural access, such a cultural imbalance will result in one side
absorbing the values of the other, while keeping the Islamic nation
"pure" and free of any outside influence. This one-sided cultural
tyranny is forcing us, the American citizen, into tolerating intolerance
while never expecting anything more aligned to Western values from the
Muslim world.

As soon as Muslims form a small community inside a Western
nation, they immediately deny access to any kind of Biblical preaching
or education inside their community, but at the same time apparently
feel entitled to demand access to preach the Koran in American prisons
and spread Islamic culture and values in American schools.

If Muslims finance Islamic Studies departments on American
campuses and teach Islam in our public schools, the same rights must be
awarded to Americans. It is true there are a few American schools in the
Middle East, such as the American University in Cairo, but these
schools are forbidden from having departments of Biblical Studies.

If Muslim governments and citizens have full access to build
mosques in America, America must insist on having the same access in
their countries. That is not the fault of Muslim countries, so much as
it is the fault of Western "multiculturalism," which expects nothing and
is adhered to only by Western nations.

If such one-sided access of Islam into the West continues, while
other religions in Muslim communities and countries are considered by
them illegal "hate crimes," Western culture and the values of free will
and religious freedom will atrophy and die. Islamists are counting on
Western inertia to win.

Similar to the often-mentioned trade imbalance, there is a large
imbalance Western nations and Muslim nations that is hardly ever
mentioned: the cultural imbalance.

Muslims have access to build mosques in the West, yet give no access
to the West to build churches or synagogues in Muslim countries. Muslim
governments finance "Islamic Studies" and "Middle East Studies"
departments in almost all major American universities, but will not
allow Christian Studies or Judaic Studies departments at any university
in the Muslim world. They freely preach Islam everywhere and consider it
their right. But not one Muslim country legally permits Christian
missionary work, and those few missionaries who dare to try are harshly
punished, imprisoned or killed.As soon as Muslims form a small community inside a Western nation,
they immediately deny access to any kind of Biblical preaching or
education inside their community, but at the same time apparently feel
entitled to demand access to preach the Koran in American prisons and
spread Islamic culture and values in American schools.

Evangelical ministers have often been expelled from Arab and Islamic
communities. This happened at an Arab festival in Dearborn, Michigan.
The city of Dearborn had to apologize
for arresting several Christian missionaries who were peacefully
preaching to Muslims at the Dearborn Arab International Festival in
2010.

Dearborn
police arrest a Christian for the "crime" of peacefully preaching to
Muslims at the Dearborn Arab International Festival, in 2010.

It was also reported by the Telegraph
that two Christian ministers in the UK were ordered by a "community
support officer" to "stop handing out gospel leaflets in a predominantly
Muslim area of Birmingham." The local Muslims threatened to beat the
pastors, and accused them of committing a "hate crime" against Muslims
by preaching the gospel -- while Muslim preachers are preaching Islam
and building mosques all over the world.

If such one-sided access of Islam into the West continues, while
access to other religions in Muslim communities and countries is
considered by them an illegal "hate crime," Western culture and the
values of free will and religious freedom will atrophy and die. Western
values will be the loser in this equation. Islamists are counting on
Western inertia to win.

If Muslim governments and citizens have full access to build mosques
in America, America must insist that it has the same access in Muslim
countries. The fault is not with the Muslim countries so much as it is
the fault of Western "multiculturalism," which expects nothing and is
adhered to only by Western nations.

If Muslim countries have the right to proselytize in America, then
Americans must insist on having the right to do the same in Muslim
countries. If Muslims finance Islamic Studies departments on American
campuses and teach Islam in our public schools, then the same rights
must be awarded to Americans. It is true there are a few American
schools in the Middle East, such as the American University in Cairo,
but these schools are forbidden from having departments of Biblical
Studies.

The Coptic Christians of Egypt have no access to any services from
the Egyptian government to study the Bible. While every school in Egypt
teaches Islam and the Koran, Egyptian Christians are left to play
instead of being provided with equivalent religious studies.

If we do not demand equal cultural access, American Christians and
Jews who live in majority Muslim neighborhoods could one day be
forbidden from studying the Bible. Such a cultural imbalance will result
in one side absorbing the values of the other while keeping the Islamic
nation "pure" and free of any outside influence. This one-sided
cultural tyranny is forcing us, the American citizen, into tolerating
intolerance while never expecting anything more aligned to Western
values from the Muslim world.

For many decades, America has set itself as the light of freedom to
the world, an example for the world to emulate. Our politicians and
media allowed the signing of agreements to lift up other nations at the
expense of the American worker in the hope that the world would
eventually reciprocate.
But reciprocation in kind, as planned by the do-gooders in the West, was not given. As Donald Trump said, we give them the money and the jobs and they give us the drugs and unemployment.

Trump's statement struck a nerve among the suffering and hard-working
American middle class. No other American politician in recent history
has said such a long-awaited comforting statement to the American
people, even after 9/11.

It is also time to treat US citizens, culture and values as number
one again. Culture matters, and it is time to acknowledge the importance
of values, sovereign law, and Western freedoms. The multiculturalists
have for too long trampled over American pride, traditional values and
Judeo-Christian ethics. The damage done to American national pride and
dignity has been profound.

The American and European public has been suffering in silence for
too long and getting the short end of the stick from those who were
elected to look after their own citizens first. It is time for Western
politicians and leaders, from the left and right, to treat their
citizens as number one again inside their own countries.

Nonie Darwish, a Middle East Expert born and raised in
Egypt, is the author of the upcoming book: "Wholly Different: Why I
Chose Biblical Values over Islamic Values."

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